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Putting Cyclopis Down
We identify four likely locations of Cyclopis’ activity - Parril’s Castle (Inquisitorial fortress), Doza Park (orky), Quibb-Quibb (time-fuckery feral world), and Ichor 12 (shattered planet) Niko takes the Allure to Parril’s castle, drops off Snitch who hunts down Cyclopis’ network, then goes to Doza Park and wrecks shit up among the orks or whatever else he finds, identifying location of any Cyclopis shit Rest of us head to Ichor 12 and, if we don’t find anything there, hit up Quibb-Quibb do some shopping and whatnot over the course of two weeks in Drakon - time for Cornelius and Stigmata to sort out some heresy quickly Journey to Ichor 12! Algerom, old family butler of House Thordash is bled by Kol. He’s not dead but he’s pretty mentally unsound Warp travel goes smoooooth, only three days Arrive at Ichor 12, blasted planet fragments - a few larger ones might be promising candidates for a base of operations ''' '''Taking two Darkwings into the debris cloud - capacity 30 normal humans each The cloud is dense and there’s weird space cephalopods lurking around. Lt Bileus Han-Solos the first darking through the debris, performing remarkably well with help from Kol’s navigation and Cornelius’ long-range sensor data * First darkwing ** Midozu (2 space) ** Team 13 (6 space) *** S'gt Eisenstein (Demoguy/infiltrator) ' *** Sgt Xanthos (Chem specialist/heavy assault) (power armour) *** Lt Bileus (Pilot/Heavy assault) (power armour) *** Spc. Aresson (Team 13 techpriest) ** Kol + 14 elite dudes ** Bureau remembrancer ** Surveyors from Rosalind (3 space) ** Space for specimens (3 space) * Second darkwing ** Cornelius ** More of Team 13 (4 space) *** (not including spc. Smith - staying on Allocution) *** Maj. Seveiren *** Lt Simeon *** Lt Mackie *** Sgt. Stromm ** Bureau team (4 space) *** Document retrieval expert *** Cryptanalyst (+ cypher engine, 1 extra space) *** Xenobiologist ** Stormtroopers (20 space) *** 2x five-trooper command team ''' *** '''1x ten-trooper squad (2 PfCs have flamer w/ toxic prometheum each) ** Extra gear (1 space) *** 2x hvy flamer w/ toxic prometheum Detect lots of hibernating ‘nids - loads of gaunts and larger ones. We land on Ichor 12 - the largest planetary fragment - near an energy source that seems to be a base of operations. Only active creatures on the surface are biovores pumping out spore mines. Make our way past some spore mines and find a tunnel that appears to lead into some sort of underground complex. Taking into caverns: * Maj. Seveiren - storm bolter * Lt Simeon - bolter + grenade launcher * Lt Mackie - stalker boltgun * Sgt Stromm - silenced bolter * Sgt Eisenstein - silenced bolter * 1x stormtrooper command team ''' ** '''Lt w/ storm bolter + power sword ** Cpl w/ vox set and meltagun ** Cpl w/ medkit and flamer (1 wound) ** PfC w/ bolter + grenade launcher ** PfC w/ heavy flamer (1 wound) * 4x Kol’s elite guard ** Ancient hellguns Cyclopis is here (somewhere in the system) and he feels betrayed (based on Midozu’s psychic divinations) There are about 40 ‘gaunts plus (a clone of?) Old One Eye Cornelius gets the initiative and blows off the carnifex’s other eye, though it starts healing Everyone starts digging in, with the heavy flamer stormtrooper proving particularly effective at roasting ‘gaunts. Seveiren and Simeon mow down ‘gaunts with bolts and grenades, as do the regular stormtroopers. Kol’s retinue hoses them with hellgun fire. Weird slug things slough off the Carnifex to regen some of the ‘gaunts, but we make short work of them. The slugs falling off reveal some weak spots, which we shoot vigorously. The two flamer stormtroopers catch some bioplasma but don’t go down (though they’re both on 0 wounds). Finally, Midozu steps in (having spent a couple rounds charging up his psychic might) and eviscerates the carnifex in one awesome nova burst. It falls apart, revealing a weird little communication device - Cyclopis has left a message or is communicating, offering mocking (and slightly frustrated) praise. Meanwhile, the surveyors we left back at the original landing site get into a bit of trouble. One of them dies to a spore mine and we order the others to get back to the Darkwing. Both Darkwings are now circling discreetly, ready to come pick us up if needed. ' '---''' '''We head deeper into the cave system, our scouts reaching a large cavern with a plinth in the middle. The cavern has dozens of gargoyles hanging from the ceiling and haruspexes buried beneath the ground, all slumbering. Midozu and Cornelius move up to the cave mouth and Midozu quietly advances into the room. As he reaches the plinth a holo-comm is triggered and Cyclopis, appearing old and haggard, appears on screen. Cyclopis says he’s ready to meet and will clear our way to his hidden lair. As we back out the nids begin to awaken and lictors pour into the room, though the lictors and other nids seem at odds with each other. Midozu sprints out and Cornelius lobs in Kristoff’s Gambit - the mysterious teleportation grenade that Kristoff gave us at the end of the mission for Trazyn. A Baneblade appears, with a blast of psychic might that overwhelms Kol, from a skavetech-esque warp rift. It is commanded by Kristoff himself, but as an old man - it seems that the rift is snatching him through time as well as space and, as we run down the corridor, we see Kristoff’s (or a version of Kristoff’s?) final moments, unleashing hell from the many barrels of the super-heavy tank. Cornelius resolves to not mention any specifics to Kristoff if we meet him again to minimise risk of paradox and the ensuing ire of Ordo Chronos. We get back to the Darkwing gunships that have landed. Lots of nids around, but they aren’t attacking us. We fly back to the Allocution of Silence and, escorted by the weird void octopus things, make our way to Cyclopis’ hidden fortress - a large complex dug into one of the less dominant fragments of the planet. We land in a Shadowhawk gunship as directed and cautiously disembark, meeting Cyclopis who is flanked by several big gribblies and six Zoanthropes that seem to be linked to him. After some negotiation we follow him to view his big project. He seems dejected and fatalistic. His project is an engineered Narvhal - massive tyranid organism that provides FTL travel. He tells us that we’ve both been played - him and us. He makes a final plea for the importance of his work. Cornelius orders his death mid-monologue. Midozu swipes at him but the forcefield provided by his Zoanthropes blocks the blow. Cornelius draws his bolt pistol and fires three exitus shieldbreaker rounds at Cyclopis, nearly killing him. Midozu finishes him off with a force blade. In his dying moment, there is a psychic mind-melding between Midozu and Cyclopis. Cyclopis calls Cornelius an interrogator and hints at things that make Midozu suspicious, alluding to our mutual enemy - his old interrogator. We get a hail on the vox - voidships incoming, apparently belonging to Cyclopis’ crazy interrogator and her genestealer cult. The stormtroopers grab what they can of Cyclopis’ data stores and we exit post-haste. There’s an epic scramble for our waiting Shadowhawk as we mow down Tyranids and make good our escape. As our voidship makes its getaway, we fire off a virus torpedo at Cyclopis’ station. It turns the considerable amount of biomass into volatile gas, which ignites and blows the station apart. The Allocution of Silence makes speed for a safe warp jump point. The interrogator’s cult flotilla tries to give chase but fails because the Allocution is fast as fuck. In an apparent last-ditch effort, the cult ships warp-blast out a bunch of genestealers, some of which end up on our ship. The stormtroopers take some losses (20 injured and quarantined; 10 dead) but between them and Midozu, the genestealers die. We warp-jump out to another system near the Emperor’s Halo. It’s near instantaneous thanks to Kol’s incredible skill and the vessel’s ancient warp travel systems. As we’re figuring out our next move, Rosalind and her support staff are having a funeral service for the surveyor who got killed by a spore mine. At the service, there’s one more void suit than there should be, which Cornelius notices and finds strange. We interrogate Rosalind’s staff and discover that they’ve been psychically memory-fucked. Rosalind is acting a bit strange - she’s briefly interrogated but seems tired and unwell, which reminds us of Cyclopis’ interrogator just before the fuckery over selling the Kraken tooth. Then it all clicks together and we realise that Rosalind could be a plant by Cyclopis’ interrogator. Not wanting to take chances, we drug Rosalind and remove her brain for investigation. Turns out we were right and a psychic personality fragment of the interrogator begins leaving Rosalind’s body - she was under the interrogator’s spell the whole time. Midozu manages to heave Rosalind into the null stasis box very quickly, trapping the fragment inside for further study. So, sadly, Rosalind is gone. But on the bright side we get to keep all the profit from the Ichor 12 mining, possibly using it as capital for a new banking system. And we can probably take over her trade network, though we’ll have to check it for any genestealer infestation. We work out that the interrogator has been sending out personality fragments based on the technique she developed on the Pink Ork, and Rosalind was used to infiltrate our inner workings. We head off for Ludd - the Allure probably hasn’t even left yet so we’re going to meet up with it and try to take out the genestealer cult ships, or at least stall them so they get stuck in the Emperor’s Halo for the next few decades/centuries